Minnesota Public Radio interviews the noble and notably uncynical Galway Kinnell, who also reads “Shelley,” a poem that was in The New Yorker not long ago (last year, which is like yesterday for poets).

Jonathan Crowe of The Map Room—”a blog about maps for a general audience, covering everything from collecting old maps to the latest in mapping technologies”—has a detailed follow-up to the William Finnegan story on the Great Forbes Smiley Map Caper. Of a press release on the scandal from the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Accociation, which “denies (‘contemptuously dismisse[s]’) map dealer Graham Arader’s allegations that a substantial portion of the maps in the marketplace are stolen,” Crowe writes tantalizingly:

As denials go, it’s weak and self-important: they cite the guidelines that their members must adhere to, which is irrelevant to the question of how much of the marketplace is contaminated by stolen goods. Their members may not be a part of it, but that does not mean that it doesn’t exist. Less bluster and more data, please.

Categories: NYer, Issue, Finnegan

Andrew Sullivan, “The End of Gay Culture,” New Republic 10/24:

“No one bats an eye if two men walk down the street holding hands, or if a lesbian couple pecks each other on the cheek, or if a drag queen dressed as Cher careens down the main strip on a motor scooter.”

Hendrik Hertzberg, “Quagmiers,” New Yorker 10/17:

“Drudge had picked up the item from Time’s site, to which it had bubbled up from the Human Rights Campaign, the gay advocacy group.”

Want more depressing bird-flu news? You got it! From BBC News:

Bird flu ‘could kill 150m people’

A flu pandemic could happen at any time and kill between 5-150 million people, a UN health official has warned.

David Nabarro, who is charged with co-ordinating responses to bird flu, said a mutation of the virus affecting Asia could trigger new outbreaks.

“The consequences in terms of human life when the pandemic does start are going to be extraordinary and very damaging,” Dr Nabarro told the BBC.

Bird flu has swept through poultry and wild birds in Asia since 2003.

It has killed huge numbers of birds and led to more than 60 human deaths.

“It’s like a combination of global warming and HIV/Aids 10 times faster than it’s running at the moment,” Dr Nabarro told the BBC.

The UN’s new co-ordinator for avian and human influenza said the likelihood that the Asian virus could mutate and jump to humans was high.

Because it has moved to wild migratory birds there is a possibility “that the first outbreak could happen even in Africa or in the Middle East”, he warned.

The comments came as agriculture ministers from the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) endorsed a three-year plan to combat the spread of the virus, and pledged $2m to fund research and training.

Dr Nabarro stressed he would be working hard to control bird flu through contact with farming communities and markets where birds are sold and looking at the migration of wild birds.

He said the number of deaths from any future influenza pandemic would depend on where it started, how quickly it was discovered and the kind of response they got from governments.

“The range of deaths could be anything between 5m and 150m,” said Dr Nabarro.

“I believe that the work we’re doing over the next few months will make the difference between, for example, whether the next pandemic leads us in the direction of 150 or in the direction of five. “So our effectiveness will be directly measured in lives saved and the consequences for the world.”

The appointment of Dr Nabarro is an indication of how seriously the UN is taking the threat, the BBC’s UN correspondent Suzannah Price says.

In his new role, he is meant to ensure that the UN has a co-ordinated response to bird flu and that it helps global efforts to prepare for any human flue pandemic, our correspondent says.

Just noticed this over on Maud Newton—my old schoolmate Tom Hopkins writes a pleasingly detailed review of the Lorrie Moore/Chang-Rae Lee reading, including her funny quips about gin, teaching, and the second person. Doing all three simultaneously not recommended.

In last weekend’s Guardian, Andrew Pulver compares the book—Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief, that is—with Adaptation in the paper’s “Writer’s Credit” series.

And just for good crumpety measure, here’s a meditation on the latest version of Pride & Prejudice, also from the Guardian. (“It is a truth universally acknowledged that some people just don’t get Jane Austen, can’t see the point of her, would rather read the Yellow Pages. Not all of these sorry souls are troglodytes.”…) I’m still getting over the blandly chatty, spotty stars in the American-friendly early trailer; they seem to have been clearasiled up in past weeks, if I’m not mistaken.

Spot the incongruous detail in Helaine Olen’s Times story about how she didn’t like what she saw when she read the nanny’s blog, or how Olen couldn’t control her voyeurism but wasn’t quite up to talking to her employee about her concerns:

Our former nanny, a 26-year-old former teacher with excellent references, liked to touch her breasts while reading The New Yorker and often woke her lovers in the night by biting them. She took sleeping pills, joked about offbeat erotic fantasies involving Tucker Carlson and determined she’d had more female sexual partners than her boyfriend.

I love how “self-righteousness and inflated self-regard” are terms better applicable to blogging rather than to, say, writing a first-person piece in the Times about one’s wistful transition from boozing, shagging youth with the weakness for 19th century literature that’s so tempting in our twenties to Krugman-skimming stroller-pusher bent on monitoring “her” worker’s downtime and the gender of her crushes. By the way, here’s the nanny’s blog (she’s a nanny now, too). She responds to Olen’s piece at great length:

Contrary to an essay published in the Style section of the NYTIMES, I am not a pill popping alcoholic who has promiscuous sex and cares nothing for the children for whom she works with. Nope. If you look carefully through my archives, instead you will find a young woman in her mid-twenties who decided to work as a nanny for a year while she prepared to enter the next phase of her professional life; namely the life of an academic pursuing a PhD in English Literature specifically focusing on the Late Victorian novel. But for those of you who dont want to comb through the archives, I will offer a refutation of the salacious, malicious, and really quite silly essay written by Ms. Olen.

Ms. Olen opens her essay with eye catching details designed to paint the picture of a prurient pill popper. She notes I mention biting my lovers, having sexual thoughts about Tucker Carlson, and taking sleeping pills. So, lets revisit those entries and see if they are really so titillating.
…
Yes, I mention that I want to do “dirty dirty” things to Tucker Carlson. I dont offer details. So, I am assuming that Ms. Olen’s imagination ran away with her and she decided that it was very sordid. But on a closer reading of this post you will find I use Tucker Carlson, a noted conservative pundidt, as an example of how opposites attract. How intellectual tensions between two people can actually fuel romantic desire. And then I do something really really deviant. I compare my crush on him to the romantic tensions in Jane Austen’s famous Pride and Prejudice. Yep, my version of the erotic has more to do with long walks and serious conversations. Of course, Ms. Olen does not point that out in her essay. My interest in literature and how I weave it through more common daily reflections would probably detract from her intent to show me as an irresponsible party girl. But there it is, on the blog she so strenuously objects to.

At least Olen will bring lapsed readers back to Sharon Olds, whose poem “Life With Sick Kids” the nanny links to, calling Olds’ writing about her kids “really, some of my favorite love poems.” (The blog’s name, “Instructions to the Double,” comes from Tess Gallagher.) What a great feud! Sunday Styles v. twentysomething blog—so iconic.

Update: There’s been a lot of debate about this today, much of it emphasizing the stupidity of the blogger for telling her boss about her highly personal blog in the first place. Of course it was dumb! And borderline crazy to post stuff about her boss’ family on the blog the nanny must have known her boss was reading religiously (some would say hungrily). Nevertheless, if Olen was uncomfortable, she should have said the first time: “Your personal life is your own, and I find your writing entertaining. Besides, I know, because of your excellent references and demonstrated work ethic, that you’d never be hung over on the job or IM with your boyfriend while you’re watching my kids. But could you do me a favor and not post anything about your work for me or about our family? Thanks, kid! You’ve been a great nanny and someday you’ll be a swell academic.” Simple, right? In any case, I think there’s another, so far unreported, story here. There’s nothing more galling than someone not reading your blog once you’ve given them the address; my own theory is that the nanny was so irked by her boss’ lack of interest in her creative life that she loaded the blog with stuff she knew would get Olen’s goat. It would be on the nutty side, yes, but as we know, there’s no shortage of nuts in this story’s Cracker Jack box.

Categories: NYT

No, no, not really. I know nothing about labor relations at the NYer (thank goodness), but often as not at these storied publications even the unhappy workers are far too entwined in the culture—or secretly content in their grouching—to ever machete their way out unless it’s done for them. Besides, you’d be a great catch for the booby hatch to leave the best magazine in America (say it with me…“probably the best magazine that ever was”). Here’s some sports journalism from those little imps at Gawker:

Summer in New York means one thing, and one thing alone: Conde Nast sports leagues! The grass is green, the air is warm, and it’s time for the Vogue girls to don their Team Judgeypants t-shirts while the GQ boys to pretend they know how to throw a baseball. Start sending us scores and schedules, and we’ll be at every game with oranges and juice boxes.

We hear that the softball teams for Vanity Fair and the New Yorker went head to head last night, with New Yorker editor David Remnick pitching. Our source says the game was surprisingly tense and “exciting,” but VF still easily won.

First VF gets the Deep Throat scoop, then they hand Remnick his ass on a plate at a softball game? Tread gently around 4 Times Square today; bruised egos are tender and Graydon Carter might be particularly maniacal.

Brainpower doesn’t always equal manpower, or even grrrl power, alas.

Magazine Intramurals: ‘VF’ Pounds ‘NYer’ At Softball Game [Gawker]

One of several randomly generated tips on the San Francisco Chronicle search results page:

To find articles about the singer Madonna, try typing Madonna NOT Holy. Using NOT (all caps) helps weed out articles about Jesus’ mother.

Too-unspecific search for “Sean Wilsey” [SF Gate]
Oh For The Gossip Of It All [SFist; post is worth its own entry. “Our New Yorker finally made the arduous trek from the Conde Nast building and across the high Sierra mountains to our little hinterlands mailbox, exhausted. We opened it up, and to our shock, it featured our little burg in an article!…Anyways, the articles are pretty entertaining (though not entirely in the good way), and worth a read. Though Sean — geez, love your mom much? Paging Mr. Oedipus Rex, extension 333, paging Mr. Oedipus Rex.”]

Categories: Wilsey, &c.